Ethics turns up in the strangest places (and is often absent in the places where it belongs.

Certainly we were not expecting to find an ethics hero at the address www.whitehouse.com, the infamous seven year old pornography site that has snagged government employees, schoolchildren researching essays, and unsuspecting web surfers of all stripes who thought they were headed to treasure trove of information about 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and got, uh, something else. (Note: the real White House site is www.whitehouse.gov. www.whitehouse.org is also worth visiting: it’s a satire site.)

This trick would have gotten a mention in our “Unethical website” category if it weren’t such old news, and sadly, so extensively copied elsewhere. For example, this month the mayor of Minneapolis, R.T. Rybak , went to dust off his old campaign site for the upcoming election and found that it had been taken over by another pornographer who decided that www.RTformayor.com was an adult entertainment natural.

But we digress. The point is that Dan Parisi, the operator of www.whitehouse.com has tired of the skin game (having become thoroughly rich…we did not say “filthy rich,” now…) and wants to sell the site to concentrate on more staid pursuits, like parenthood and real estate. He has received at least two offers of $2,000,000, and reportedly another that agreed to pay any price Parisi named. But none of the brokers making the offers would divulge the identity of the would-be buyers, so Parisi declined. According to his spokesperson, Parisi will not risk letting the site fall into the hands of terrorists, or for that matter, pornographers. Not even for millions of dollars.

He may be the first and last porn king ever to receive the honor, but for that ethical and unselfish decision, Dan Parisi deserves the mantle of Ethics Hero.